Red Cross Blogs

Meet Daahir in refugee week

By Julie Linter
June 19, 2009 at 5:22 pm

This week we have been encouraging everyone to look beyond the label to the person and who they actually are. There are many, many people who come to the UK with with a vast array of skills and talents and they make enormous contributions to society.

Meet Daahir for instance, who has been volunteering with the Red Cross in Bristol since February this year…..

He has trained to be a caseworker for the international tracing and message service and will be involved with interviewing people who are trying to find their families after they have been separated by war. The fact that he can speak five languages will be an enormous help.

Daahir has also trained to help asylum seekers and refugees access services and become familiar with Bristol as part of the Red Cross orientation service. He also does voluntary work with Bristol Refugee Rights.

So what motivated Daahir to volunteer? When he was in Somali he worked as a plumber and welder. At the moment Daahir is not permitted to work in the UK so he sees volunteering as a way of finding out what he would like to do in the future. He is gaining experience of supporting people and it has made him rethink about how he can best use his skills in the future. He told us “volunteering has given me a lot of self-awareness and I now feel much happier as a result of volunteering and can see the positive effects on my well-being of using my time to help others and to help me dwelling on my own situation”. Daahir is waiting to hear the outcome of his asylum claim.

So what does Daahir enjoy about volunteering? He says “I enjoy being able to help individuals with their difficulties, and providing them with the links to go forward in their lives. This is particularly as I have been in this situation myself and know how much I appreciated support from others”.

What has he gained from volunteering? He says “I think I have benefited from meeting people who are older and more experienced than myself as I have been able to learn from them and gain some new direction with my life. My mother always tried to show me the right direction and encouraged me to be a good character. Volunteering helps me do this; to be a good person. Volunteering makes me feel like I have done something good and have been useful – and that’s the overall aim of life”

We have many volunteers at the Red Cross with similiar aspirations and who are working extremely hard to be able to make positive contribtions to the UK. If you go to the Red Cross look beyond the label campaign website you will find other equally inspiring stories of Red Cross volunteers.

It would be good to hear of people you know who are making a positive contribution to life in the UK

---

Comment (0) »

---

Tags: Bristol, international tracing & message service, orientation service, Volunteering

The Red Cross values comments both complimentary and critical. However, we will not tolerate the following: aggressive or personal criticism of the blogger, breach of copyright, obscene, defamatory, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or likewise objectionable comments.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Health and social care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

---